New Belgium -- Snow Day Winter Ale

I'm no stranger to New Belgium Brewing, but this is the first of their beers that I've blogged about.  When I was in Colorado visiting our friend Blake, our plan was to tour New Belgium but they had just implemented a policy where tours had to be by reservation and they were full -- so we did the Denver Microbrew Tour instead.

Here is some history on New Belgium: in 1989, Jeff Lebesch road a bike with "fat tires" through Europe and then started home brewing back home in Colorado.  Jeff was an electrical engineer and built his home brewing set up from old dairy equipment.  Jeff officially started New Belgium in 1991 after friends urged him to start brewing as a business.  Jeff's then wife, Kim Jordan, was a social worker who started doing New Belgium's bottling, sales, distributing, marketing, and financial planning.  Today, she is New Belgium's CEO.  New Belgium Brewing is considered a regional brewery since it only distributes to 15 states, but it is still the third biggest craft brewer in the U.S. based on beer sales volume.

New Belgium, like Sierra Nevada, works hard to be "green."  And their website is even powered by wind.  How does that work?  Their data center is powered by a wind farm in Wyoming.  New Belgium is particularly focused on being environmentally sustainable.

Now for the beer: Snow Day Winter Ale.  New Belgium's old winter seasonal, 2 Below, was retired to make way for Snow Day and mix things up a bit.  The stats are: 6.2% ABV and 55 IBU's (although IBU's are just a made up number since its subjective and there is no way to quantify bitterness).  As you can see, the color of Snow Day is about as dark as beers come.  It tastes dark like a stout but quite a bit more hoppy.  The Midnight Wheat malt gives it subtle chocolate flavors.  It's crisp with a short aftertaste.  I thought it was like a pale ale in hoppiness but with darker roasted malts.  I expect winter ales to be dark and heavy, but different from a stout or porter -- that's exactly what Snow Day delivers.  Overall, it's a good beer that's balanced enough to have wide appeal.